Mayor Goldsmith Hails Tuition Scholarships

Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith applauded the plans of the Educational CHOICE Charitable Trust to target up to $250,000 in new tuition scholarships to students residing in the inner-city Citizen's King Park neighborhood. The partial tuition scholarships will be available to students in grades K_8 and on a first_come, first_served basis.

"We are concerned about the children of the Citizen's King Park neighborhood," said Carol D'Amico, CHOICE's board president, noting that the area may well be the poorest and most crime_plagued in the city. Even though the area includes two historical neighborhoods that are undergoing renovation, it reports some troubling trends:

61 percent of households earn annual incomes less than $25,000;

Nearly three_quarters of the families with children are headed by single parents; and

37.8 percent of the population has not finished high school.

Goldsmith said the city had invested more than $25 million in the neighborhood to improve the quality of life for its residents. Nevertheless, he added, "the most important investment we can make in the future of this area is in its children."

The Educational CHOICE Charitable Trust, the first program of its kind in the nation, was founded in 1991 and has funded nearly $6 million in scholarships for students from low_income families.